Casserly Calls Lewis Hiring the "Kiss of Death"

(1999 photo by Khue Bui - AP)

The New York Times recently wrote a somewhat strange story about the Redskins with this bizarre headline: "Former Redskins Executive Likes Snyder's Newfound Patience." Bizarre, because none of Charley Casserly's quotes exactly praised Snyder. Or mentioned Snyder.

Regardless, I think we can safely assume that Charley Casserly no longer likes Snyder's "newfound patience." The former GM was on Comcast SportsNet's Washington Post Live Tuesday evening, shortly after the news broke of Sherm Lewis's hiring as an offensive adviser/consultant/whatever, and Casserly didn't skip a beat.

"I'll jump on this one right away here," Casserly quickly said. "OK, number one, I don't know this, [but] I don't believe Jim Zorn voted for this, ok? Now he may have accepted it, but I have a hard time believing [he said], 'You know what, I need somebody in here.'

"The other thing is, I'm dead set against bringing people in in the middle of the season like this, ok? This is the kiss of death, men....And it's nothing against Sherman Lewis, I know Sherman Lewis, but I've never believed in these things, I'm not for it. It's a philosophical thing that business people believe in. Obviously Dan Snyder's believed in it because he's done it on more than one occasion here before. I don't....Historically, consultants lead to other people getting fired."

So that does not qualify as approval, necessarily. And while this is the same thing we all must have immediately thought when seeing the news, it's still worthwhile to see what others are saying. Like, The Examiner's John Keim caught up with a current NFL GM, who said this:

"My gut feeling is that they will let him come in and be here two to three weeks and if things don't get better, he now knows the offense and the talent and he becomes the playcaller and they name Blache the head coach -- if things don't change."

"Talking to some people there at Redskins Park, there's no denying that yesterday they had no one on staff who was capable of running that offense on an interim basis if Jim Zorn were to be relieved of his duties mid-season. Now they do. Lewis can be there, study with them, be in the meeting rooms, all that stuff. And if they make a move, that's someone who has called plays and has been a coordinator at the NFL level in the West Coast system."

"Now what he's going to do is consult and help Jim Zorn prepare for the games. This offense has had eight consecutive home games dating back to last year where they've not scored 20 points. It's still an offense scoring less than 15 points a game. I guess when you go to a consultant, you can say it's a little bit of a panic, but they needed to do something."

To me, the most ominous quote (outside the "Kiss of Death" bit) came from Vinny Cerrato himself, when he said he didn't know what Lewis's role would be, but that "they'll get that figured out here in the next day." Hiring someone for a job that wasn't open with responsibilities that haven't yet been figured out seems...odd, anyhow.

As a Zorn supporter, the words of John Clayton are a real dagger to where my heart used to be before Dan Snyder ate it.

8 STRAIGHT HOME GAMES WITHOUT 20 POINTS!!! I knew the offense had fallen off since the 6-2 start of '08 (and even then it was not nearly as proficient as we "remember"), but GOOD GOD that is a depressing stat. Zorn needs help, the offense needs help, desperately, and I'm now convinced that anything less than 4-3 at the bye = coach Blache and OC Lewis

If you take the first post by MrMerkin, about the coaches under Snyder winning %'s, and average them out, it comes out to a winning percentage of .411. Thanks for ruining my team Danny Boy. I'll be wearing my paper bag at home now since you've banned them at games.